Plan, design, build, and implement an Ecommerce website or online store that performs effectively for a New Zealand or global audience.

Buying, selling and booking online with Ecommerce has never been more popular.

By mid-2014, over 56% of the NZ population had made purchases online. Nearly half a million Kiwis each made 11 or more purchases on the internet in 2014, an increase of 58 percent in the last two years.

why work with SiteSmart?

Website Guarantee
If you’re not happy with the delivery of the agreed specifications of your website project, we will work with you until we get it right, for no extra charge.

Ecommerce Website Design: Platform Options

There are a range of Ecommerce platforms available – each with their own pros and cons. Here are some that we’ve found to be most popular with NZ businesses:

Magento

Shopify

WooCommerce

WP Ecommerce

OpenCart

Big Commerce

Small Fish

Which Ecommerce platform should I choose?

For most businesses needing Ecommerce in NZ, we recommend WooCommerce. Why?

Our team’s view from working with Ecommerce website design clients:

Magento is highly functional but very expensive to implement. If you’re looking for a Rolls Royce solution, this is the one to go for. But you won’t get much change from $7,000+ for a simple website.

Shopify, BigCommerce, and Small Fish are all hosted systems. This means they come with limited functionality and have monthly fees that are charged depending on how functional your website is, how many products you have, and how much you sell. They only offer limited NZ payment options – sometimes only PayPal. So they can be limited in design and features, plus can get pricey for a small business when you start to do well. You don’t own your own website so you can’t take it elsewhere if you wish. On the plus side, they are great for DIYers that don’t want to come into contact with code.

OpenCart and WP Ecommerce are open source so they have no ongoing fees, and are self hosted so you own your own site. Unfortunately, these two platforms have suffered from lack of community support and in many ways are becoming superseded in the Ecommerce world. They still do a great job, but feedback suggests that they are not as well set up for user-friendliness or for built in SEO. They don’t have many functional add ons or plugins, so often require expensive developer time to create and maintain.

WooCommerce is open source (no ongoing fees), and self hosted (so you own your own website). It is based on WordPress – an industry leader that runs over 50 million websites worldwide. And while they come with set functionality out of the box (great for when your budget is limited), they allow a wide range of customisations to be made by a developer (so they are scalable and you can upgrade when budget allows). WooCommerce comes with a large support system and a wide range of plugin and extension options that range from free to a few hundred dollars.

We recommend WooCommerce

This video describes the WooCommerce system well – it is an Ecommerce plugin for WordPress, and usually requires working with a WordPress theme that is built to support WooCommerce. WooCommerce is an open source system, so there are no monthly fees (other than your own hosting services).

WooCommerce websites are comparatively cost-effective to set up – especially if you use a pre-made theme with only a few small customisations.

Customising a theme or website with specific design features, custom functionality, and automated systems all increase the budget you’ll need to get your website off the ground.

The system is scalable, so that you can add extra features, plugins, and levels of automation when your business and budget allow for it.